Banana Scones

Here's something else you can do with that brown banana besides banana bread. I started trying to work out a recipe like this when we were in Austria and I didn't have bread pans, and they turned out pretty good. The oats give it a nice hearty sort of texture and the ginger, a surprising little bite. If your crystallized ginger is very hard you might want to soak it in the milk before mixing it in.

Banana Scones with Ginger
2 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. powdered ginger
1 c. quick oats
1/2 c. butter, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 c. milk
1 tbsp. crystallized ginger, cut into very small pieces
2 very ripe, large bananas

a little extra milk, for topping
1/8 c. sugar with 1/8 tsp. ground ginger mixed in, for topping

Preheat the oven to 425. Mix together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, powdered ginger, and oats. Toss in the cold butter, and cut it in with two butter knives or rub it in with your fingers until it resembles coarse crumbs. Let the mixture chill in the freezer while you prepare the other ingredients. Mash the bananas until they are very smooth, then measure out 1 cup of the mash. Two bananas should give you slightly more than one cup, so just discard the rest. Take the flour mixture out of the freezer, and pour the mashed banana and the milk and crystallized ginger into it. Toss it lightly with a fork, then turn it out onto a clean surface and knead it a little until everything holds together and is equally sticky. It will be quite sticky, so you might want to flour your hands just very lightly.

Gather the dough together into a ball, and transfer it to a greased baking sheet. Spread the ball of dough into a circle about 1 inch tall and 7 or 8 inches across. Then with a clean knife, cut the circle into 8 wedges, wiggling the knife in between them to separate them slightly. Brush a little extra milk on the top of each wedge, then sprinkle that lightly with the sugar/ginger mixture. You probably won't even use all of the sugar.


Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes. The top and edges should be starting to turn a light golden brown, and the scones should not look shiny and wet anymore, just sparkly from the sugar topping. Enjoy with milk or some fruity tea.